There's the first-overall pick who blew us away with his defense but hit like an All-Star only once. There's the slugger who followed up his MVP season with one of the worst Angels seasons ever. And there are two players who looked like certain Hall of Famers by their 25th birthdays, only to be derailed by injuries.

And an owner who is responsible for the club's very existence, personality and history -- but who never did find the secret to putting a winning product on the field.

Even the greatest heroes disappoint us sometimes, but every player, manager and owner on today's list will remind Angels fans of the franchise's high points.

NOTE: The greatest Angels could be players, coaches, front office personnel or announcers who spent at least three seasons with the team.

The panel of voters was eclectic. Members of the Register's baseball staff and columnists were joined by prominent Angels' website administrators, a member of the Angels front office, a radio personality and a few Angels' bloggers.Voters included:Bill Plunkett, Dan Woike, Sam Miller and Earl Bloom, the Register reporters who regularly cover baseball.Randy Youngman, Mark Whicker and Jeff Miller, the Register columnists.Keith Sharon, Register Angels editor.Tim Mead, Angels Vice President of Communications.Jeff Biggs, known for his Angels radio show at AM 830.Chuck Richter, administrator at Angelswin.com.Mat Gleason, administrator at Halosheaven.com.James Rygg, blogger/administrator at TrueGrich.com.Ellen Bell, The Afternoon Angel, a contributor on the Register's Angels blog.Jenelyn Russo, The Rally Monkey Mom, a contributor on the Register's Angels blog.

Every player from No. 20 to No. 11 was an All-Star as an Angel. Some were phenoms, some broke records, some were MVPs. Click through the photos to see who our voters selected. TEXT BY SAM MILLER, OCRNo. 20: Mike Witt Angels starting pitcher 1981-1990 109-106, 3.78 ERA, 1,283 SOs

Considering what he had just accomplished, Mike Witt was surprisingly cool. On the final day of the 1984 season, the Buena Park native retired all 27 batters he faced, 94 perfect pitches for the 11th perfect game in Major League history. "I think I had a good curve ball," he told reporters. And, "All you're trying to do is get outs. All I know is it's hard as heck to get." Even today, he's less proud of that individual accomplishment and more proud of what he did two years later. "Number 1 has to be the two games I pitched in the 1986 playoffs against Boston, pitching a complete game and beating Clemens in Game 1 in Boston and then going 8 2/3 innings in Game 5 where we were one pitch away from the World Series," he told us this month. "Gives me goose bumps just thinking about it even now." And the perfect game? "Monumental, no doubt, but definitely second place in my book to the 1986 playoffs." FILE PHOTO. TEXT BY SAM MILLER, OCRNo. 19: John Lackey Angels starting pitcher 2002-2009 102-71, 3.81 ERA, 1,201 SOs

Imagine the universe in which John Lackey got hit hard. Imagine the Angels didn't win the World Series. Imagine that Spiezio's home run became a footnote in the Giants' seven-game World Series victory. Imagine Mike Scioscia being savaged for choosing a rookie to start the biggest game of the year, not the veteran Ramon Ortiz. Imagine how the heartbreak of losing Game 7 would have bled into the disappointment of a lackluster 2003 season, and imagine Arte Moreno never bought the team, and imagine Vladimir Guerrero never signed. Imagine celebrating the team's 50th anniversary and trying to block out the elephant in the room: 50 years, no World Series. It's terrifying, makes your palms sweat, makes your breathing shallow, but John Lackey was never scared. "You couldn't ask for a better man to be out there than Lackey," closer Troy Percival said. "He's not scared of anything." He has the most postseason innings pitched in team history, and a 3.12 ERA in 12 October starts. Never scared of anything. AP PHOTO. TEXT BY SAM MILLER, OCRNo. 18: Francisco Rodriguez Angels relief pitcher 2002-2008 .208 saves, 2.35 ERA, 587 SOs

Frankie Rodriguez' career with the Angels started with a typo -- his name, misspelled as "Rodrigues" above his locker -- and it ended with the all-time saves record, a mind-boggling 62 saves in 69 chances in 2009. In between, he was unforgettable: striking out 13 of the 21 batters he faced in his first major league call-up, then 40 percent of the batters he faced in the 2002 postseason; finishing fourth in Cy Young voting as a 22-year-old set-up man; punching out at least 12 batters per nine innings in four straight years; and, when he started to lose his velocity, developing a dominant changeup to claim the saves record. He also has the Angels team records for strikeouts per nine innings (11.7) and ERA (2.35). PHOTO BY MATT A. BROWN, OCR. TEXT BY SAM MILLER, OCRNo. 17: Wally Joyner Angels first baseman 1986-1991 .288 batting average, .353 OBP, .455 SLG, 114 HRs, 518 RBIs

Wally Joyner had played all of nine games when the first banner appeared, on April 17, 1986. "Wally World." He was 23, he had two big-league home runs, and he was already supposed to lead the franchise. "I haven't been this excited about a young player since Stan Musial came up," a fan told a reporter at the time. It had been almost a decade since the Angels had produced an All-Star from their own farm system, and Joyner was the perfect candidate: Sweet swing, good fundamentals, great reputation, and a desire to please. "Wally's trying to please too many people," his manager, Gene Mauch, said. "His family, the fans, his teammates, you guys (sports writers), Mickey Mouse and all the other characters over there at Disneyland." And, for the most part, he did, batting .455 in the postseason for the Angels, hitting 20 home runs in the first half of his rookie season, and finishing eighth in MVP voting that year. He leads Angels first baseman in playing time, in wins added, in home runs, in RBI -- with nearly double his nearest competition -- and in defensive runs saved. AP PHOTO. TEXT BY SAM MILLER, OCRNo. 16: Troy Glaus Angels third baseman 1998-2004 .253/.357/.497, 182 HRs, 515 RBIs

People forget that Glaus was a pretty good defender, well above average his first five seasons. They forget because they're dazed by his early power numbers, as when he set franchise records with 47 home runs and a .604 slugging percentage. "We were not talking about a guy I had any question would make it to the major leagues," his UCLA coach, Gary Adams, told the LA Times in 2000. "The questions were: When does he win his first Gold Glove? When does he make his first All-Star game? When does he get into the Hall of Fame?" He got closer to that forecast than most college superstars do, but injuries do cruel things to great careers. Still, he hit 320 career home runs, was the MVP of a World Series, and hit .338/.417/.797 in the postseason. For the next 50 years, whenever the Angels have a below average third baseman, some fan will inevitably complain that they never should have let Glaus leave. PHOTO BY KEVIN SULLIVAN, OCR. TEXT BY SAM MILLER, OCRNo. 15: Frank Tanana Angels pitcher 1973-1980 102-78, 3.08 ERA, 1233 SO

If anybody ever looked like a sure Hall of Famer by age 23, it was Tanana. Babe Ruth is the only lefty to win more games through his Age-23 season; and no lefty struck out more batters or tossed more shutouts by that point. He led the league in strikeouts at age 21, in WHIP at 22, in ERA at 23, and had already pitched three of the dozen greatest seasons in Angels history. Did overuse -- including a string of 14 consecutive complete games in 1977 and a staggering 1,003 innings before his 24th birthday -- derail that HOF career? Maybe. After the 14th complete game, on his 24th birthday, Tanana saw his ERA balloon to 3.87 over the last three months of the season. (It had been 1.89.) He spent September on the disabled list with an inflamed left triceps. In consecutive seasons, his strikeout rate dropped from 9.4 per game in his best season to 8.1 to 7.6 to 5.2 to 4.6, and the lefty hailed by rival managers as the best pitcher in the game never had an ERA under 3.00 again. He had to settle for a merely great -- if not immortal -- career, with 240 wins, a 3.66 ERA and a reputation as a fine Christian man. AP PHOTO. TEXT BY SAM MILLER, OCRNo. 14: Don Baylor Angels designated hitter 1977-1982 .262/.337/.448, 141 HRs, 523 RBIs

In 1979, the Angels were fighting for their first postseason berth. It was a close race, with the Angels up just a half-game into September. Eight times they were tied for first place, and in those eight games Don Baylor earned himself his MVP award: He hit .462, and slugged .962. He homered four times and drove in 14 and scored 10 times in those eight games. The Angels went 6-2, they ultimately won the AL West by just three games, and Don Baylor was the first MVP in team history. PHOTO BY H. LORREN AU, OCR. TEXT BY SAM MILLER, OCRNo. 13: Gene Autry Angels owner 1960-1997 Three playoff appearances

We can't say Autry was a winning owner, exactly. "For sure, baseball has been the most exciting and frustrating experience in my life," he once said. "In the movies, I never lost a fight. In baseball, I hardly ever won one." The Angels were 200 games under .500 during his ownership, and wouldn't win a World Series until five years after he sold his last share in the team. But consider where Autry brought this franchise (and, with it, the quiet suburbs of Orange County). Here's one wire story, the day after he paid the expansion fee in 1960: "The problems confronting Autry are staggering. Spring training starts in March, only two and a half months from now. No site has been obtained. No manager has been hired. No players have been purchased. No tickets have been printed, much less sold." But under Autry's ownership that the Angels (he claimed) turned a profit that year, and had a winning record the next. Under Autry, they developed into a major-market team, a franchise that could land top free agents and develop homegrown talent. Sure, there were some cringe-inducing missteps along the way, but far better to have loved and lost than never to have had a team at all. FILE PHOTO. TEXT BY SAM MILLER, OCRNo. 12: Darin Erstad Angels outfielder/first baseman, 1996-2006 .286/.341/.416, 114 home runs, 625 RBIs

For years, Darin Erstad was a whipping boy for the sabermetricians. He no longer hit, he never walked, he got paid a lot and his most widely lauded qualities were vaguely defined intangibles: Grit and hustle and, sure, defense, but everybody knew defense was hard to measure and overrated. Somewhere along the way, though, baseball got pretty good at measuring defense, and even measuring hustle (at least in the form of baserunning), and it became clear that Darin Erstad was a underrated star. He leads all Angels in baserunning runs added over his career. He leads all Angels in defensive runs saved over his career. He might be the best defensive outfielder of his generation, and he's certainly in the top two or three. Yes, that astounding 2000 season -- 240 hits, .355 batting average, 121 runs -- was a tease, but Erstad didn't need to hit .355 to be great. He just needed the rest of the world to pay attention to what he was doing, and how well he was doing it. PHOTO BY KEVIN SULLIVAN, OCR. TEXT BY SAM MILLER, OCRNo. 11: Mike Scioscia Angels manager 2000-present .550 winning percentage, six playoff appearances

On April 23, 2002, the hot topic to talk about was Mike Scioscia's job security. He had just signed a long extension before the season, but his Angels were 6-14 -- mostly against division rivals -- and 10.5 games out of first place. "I'm ultimately accountable," he told a reporter. "That's the way baseball is, the manager is accountable. But I haven't even thought about that scenario. And it absolutely won't change what I do on a day-to-day basis." That night, Scioscia threw his lineup into a jumble, putting a career pinch-hitter in the third spot and fielding a different lineup for the 12th consecutive day -- and the Angels scored 10 runs, started an eight-game winning streak, and ultimately won the World Series. Today, and almost every day since Game 7, there's no manager in the league with more job security. Before Scioscia, the Angels had played in the postseason three times. Since Scioscia, they've played in the postseason six times. "His greatest asset is a vision for a complete season, recognizing that things I do today will be have big impact in September," Tim Salmon told me. "He's got 25 guys, and he's great at tinkering over the course of the season. It's a marathon." AP PHOTO. TEXT BY SAM MILLER, OCR
Among the voters, the lightening rod on this list was Gene Autry. Four voters thought he was the MOST IMPORTANT Angel in history, while two didn't include him on their ballot. Check out Mike Scioscia's ranking -- many votes in the top 6, but he lands at No. 11. Troy Glaus had votes in the top 10, 20 and 30. GRAPHIC BY CINDY O'DELL, TEXT BY KEITH SHARON

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